My trek from Nebaj to Todos Santos was previously cancelled but is actually running this Saturday! So I decided to see Lago de Atitlan now until Thursday. I{m now in San Pedro La Laguna on the Lake which is fantastic. I scored a single room with a bath and hammock for 20Q. Right after I checked in, I walked 1 block and ran into Elaine and Enrico! (Elaine who I was travelling with before.) She was supposed to be in Antigua and I was supposed to be in Xela so it{s a travelling miracle! Since we parted I have generally disliked everyone that I{ve spent time with. (For example the Australian guy who is also going on the 6-day-Nebaj-Todos-Santos trip).

Today I found a fantastic English bookstore in Xela. It was kind of weird because all the female authors were on a "Woman Author" wall but it had some great books. (I picked up Larry{s Party by Carol Shields and am going to go back on Thursday.) I had a bad experience waiting for the bus here. This awful 10 year old boy stalked me and threw stones at my feet (to get my attention) and it really rattled me.

Matt asks: Are you missing any of the comforts of home or are you finding everything you want in the tourist district?

Answer: The coffee here makes me cry. This is the (growing) coffee center of the universe. On the overnight trek I was able to eat beans off the trees. And when you order a cafe they add Nescafe to hot water or if you order a cafe con leche they add Nescafe to hot milk (or even worse to water with instant milk). V. depressing.

Fucking fuck. I was half-way through a post and an email and the electricity went out. I{ll try again...

I can´t access my mail. Or ping any cs machines. Is there something going on in Waterloo?

I got back from this overnight trek: http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/Santiaguito.htm. I cant figure out the punctuation on this keyboard.

Yesterday afternoon we were trekking up the hill and it was pretty hot. It started to rain and then it started to pour which was fantastic at the time. But then it kept on raining. And pouring. We trekked for about an hour in the pouring rain and thunder and lightning. When we got to the campsite it continued to pour. Anyway, after the rain finally stopped it was very overcast and we couldnt really see the volcano, Santiagito. But we could hear it and see smoke.

At midnight people left the tent to see if they could see the volcano but it was still overcast.

At 4am I woke up and got up to look for the volcano. I trekked to the lookout spot. Then I squatted to pee. While peeing the volcano erupted. I could see glowing red lava shoot into the air like if someone jumped into a swimming pool. Then there was a huge mushroom cloud of smoke that was silouhetted with the mountain. It was one of the most incredible things Ive seen.

I woke up everyone else because now we could see the volcano. It erupted with the same magnitude once more before the sun rose. Since after the sun rises, you cant see the lava. But this time I had to listen to a loser Australian saying "Hurry up. Come to daddy. Lets go". Then watched the sunrise which happened right next to the volcano. It was really fantastic.

Where do buses go when they die?

Now I´m in Quetzaltenango also called Xela ("Shay la"). It was a crazy day of chicken buses to get here. The public buses here are old school buses from the US and Canada. Some of them are painted other colours but they´re usually bright yellow. They´re called chicken buses because people bring livestock on them (although I have yet to see this. Once I did store my bag in the back of a collectivo with a goat).

The whole experience is totally surreal. I got on a bus today and all of the seats had 3 people on them. So I stood. Then this woman motioned to a 3x3 inch section on the seat beside her. I sat there and put her daughter on my lap, so there were 4 of us on the one seat, originally sized for school children. I had only 1 cheek on the seat, which wouldn´t have been awful except we were rounding crazy curves. I worked out a system where I was bracing myself with the seat across the aisle.

The (school bus) seats are packed and people are standing in the aisles, and there is the guy who collects the money walking from one end of the bus to the other.

The back emergency exit is used as a door. We were barrelling down the highway and someone was walking along the open windows outside of the bus (you could only see his feet). There was a hardcore gringo couple. The husband was putting there stuff personally on the roof and the bus was moving and the wife was screaming at the bus driver in spanish that her husband was on the roof. Then he pops in from the back emerg exit and all is well. And there´s a sound system hooked up with speakers in the back.

Last night I was meeting some people at a bar at 9. I arrived at about 8:30 and this man that I talked to earlier at a bookstore came and sat down and chatted. He´s a CPA from San Fran. He had a really interesting story because 10 days ago everything (passport, credit cards) was stolen. He was on a chicken bus and had a bag under his arm. The guy next to him sliced the side of the bag and got out the documents without the San Franciscan realizing.

Anyway, time passes and Elaine and Mike and I are talking to this man. Elaine mentions some couple. SF says "It´s funny that you would think that that is strange. I´ve been a member of a polyamourous community for two years now...". Then he comes out as being "kinky". And this is some seriously kinky stuff!!! He´s the president elect of the second oldest kinky society (it´s called something more formal). It was a pretty interesting night. For example, did you know that there is a shortage of female doms. Well there is. This guy was way more interesting than your average accountant...

I went to the mercado today and bought a fruit that looks like a potato on the outside and is kind of squishy on the inside. V. sweet. I didn´t really like it. I also bought strawberries and blackberries. The market was pure craziness.

Today I did as many touristy things that I could fit in before it started raining (since yesterday was a write off). Once it started raining I went to every english used bookstore in the city and they were all filled with crap!!! I´m going to see if I´m luckier in Xela.

Elaine is now living with a Guatemalan family. I have plans to meet a bunch of people at Reilly´s Irish pub at 9. It´s weird because no one has a phone so plans and meeting places are made that way.

I just had a thought. A couple of days ago in Lanquin we were walking down the road and behind us these two small boys were holding onto a running bull with ropes and being pulled. They yelled at us "Vamos!!! Rapido!!!" and we had to run down the street ahead of the bull so not to be run over.

I am in Antigua. And v. hungover.

Antigua is very nice but the ability to completely ignore the fact that I am in Guatemala, within another culture and language is freaking me out. And I´m hungover. Ironically we drank 2for1 at an Irish pub that has no beers on tap.

Also we´ve been calling this place (El Retiro) the non-inclusive-all-inclusive because it´s on a tab system (water, Internet, food, sleep) and so it feels all inclusive but actually isn´t.

Towards late afternoon the air here is hazy and smoky and the mountains (I´m in a valley) become less clear. It´s because in the surrounding hills there is a continual burning of the jungle and forests that surround this area. Driving through the landscape you see forest beside farm land beside an acre that is black and ash. And last night after dusk you could see fires on the mountains that surround the valley.

I am having a vacation in a vacation. Tonight will be my third night at El Retiro in the town of Lanquin. Last night we decided to stay another night on our walk back from a cave where we had watched all the bats pour out of at dusk. I´ve been feeling beyond exhausted since Tikal and my body feels so tired, but right now I´m feeling more rested. There is a really group of people here, mostly from Canada. Today´s sole activity was renting inner tubes, walking really far and then tubing back downstream. It was so perfect. I´ve been reading Fingersmith by Sarah Walters in a hammock. Super good.

My trek (from Nebaj to Todos Santos) was cancelled! I just got an email. So sad. They have a bunch of other treks leaving the same day that are shorter. So I´ll still go trekking but it sucks!

Yesterday was also a veg day, but at Semuc Champey, which was the same idea as Agua Azul in Mexico but a billion times nicer. The swimming was great and we were sliding down waterfalls and it was so blue and so clear.

Tomorrow is a travel day to Antigua.

Today was the bestest day of travelling. Last night Elaine (not Elena) and I bought drinks and hung out on the hostel roof with a bunch of other people from the hostel. It was a pretty good crowd except for these 2 English girls who were BRUTAL and single (double?) handedly destroyed the entire group dynamic (example comment I overheard "All the other girls are talking over there and I´m talking to the boys. That makes me a slut!!! And I say the word cunt a lot! ha ha ha" <- I´m not mocking her saying cunt. She actually talked about how she says cunt. Lame-o). It was death but we laughed about it a lot today.

Anyway, we got to the bus stop about 1/2 before the bus was supposed to leave (per the lonely planet). We get to the bus "area" and this man yells at us (all of this is in Spanish) where are you going? I´m like, we´re going to Coban. He screams "You must get in this bus NOW NOW NOW!!" I was like, cool it mister. We´re not some stupid gringoes, where the hell is this bus going? Then he tried to bully us into a collectivo and the whole situation was pretty sketch, but it was going to a town on the way so we hopped in.

From there, we would tell the driver, or driver´s helper of each collectivo (reassuringly only Elaine and I and all locals) where we were going and they would walk us down the street to the next stop on our tour. At one point we were driving down a street, passed another van, slammed on the breaks, our luggage was thrown from the roof of one to the other and we were yelled at ("VAMOS!! VAMOS") It seems like the system tries to get as many people as fast as possible to their destination. And the original sketchiness is just how the system works.

Anyway, on our way I was reading the LP and was like, "why are we going to this shitty city Coban, we should go to this small town that seems really cool". So here I am. If there was a Guatemalan version of The Beach this is it. You guys would die. I´m waiting for everyone to turn into cannibals in a drunken orgy. Anyway, it´s indescribable. Since places like this exist, and it´s definitely not "real" travelling, even though everyone here self-identifies as travelling, I don`t get why people like us and our friends wouldn´t come somewhere like this instead of Cancun for a week vacation. It is unbelievable. I´ll take pictures.

The ride was so much fun. I chatted with people, the landscapes were fantastic, we passed all of these interesting people doing interesting things. The Mayan people here carry things on their heads. Like women will be walking down the street with a basket, or a square purse or something on their head. And these people had these 60lB bags of stuff on the roof of the van and it would be passed down onto their shoulder and they would be able to take the money out of their pocket and hand it to the driver (bags that it took 2 people to lift). Great day.

There were SO many people who were flying from Flores to Guatemala City and I felt so bad for them today, because they were missing so much.

Tomorrow I´m going to see a waterfall and then I think we´re going to try to get all the way to Lago Attilan (sp?) in one day. Then I´m leaving for a 6 day trek on Saturday.

I went to Tikal yesterday. It is a huge Mayan ruin, right in the jungle. I got there yesterday around 4pm. I went to see the ruins but got side-tracked by about 10 howler monkeys all high up in a tree. There scream is absolutely blood-curdling. I watched them forever then looked at one of the ruins and headed back to the hotel because I was starving. I am unable to eat square meals. Around lunch time I tell myself that I´ll have a late lunch (like the locals), but then end up doing something or being on a bus in the afternoon, so by dinner I´m famished. This is largely because I´m lazy and unable to plan ahead.

Anyway at dinner I sat by myself, but this group of 3 people came in and we started talking and they sat down with me. They were doing an engineers without borders project in El Salvador (building a pedestrian bridge). They went to some university in Houston. Anyway, they were pretty boring. Then after dinner I started drinking with 3 other people and they were really fun. One of them, Elena, just finished at Conestoga and she left the other 2 and now we´re heading south together. The electricity went out around 9 so we went outside to finish our drinks. There were (no exagerration) moths the size of birds diving into our candle.

The big deal about staying overnight like I did is that you get up for sunset and walk to Templo VI and sit on the top and watch the sunrise. But there are 2 problems. They don´t open the park until 6am and since it´s the rainy season there are no sunrises. So we were waiting at 6am and then booted it to the Temple. There was mist over everything so we sat at the top and watched the mist dissipate. We were sitting above the jungle canopy and you could hear all of the birds and the monkeys and as the mist lifted you could see other ruins emerging through the canopy. It was a very cool moment. Here was my view. It was used as the rebel base in Star Wars.

Then I took a tour of the ruins. I´m really running out of steam on the whole "old Mayan ruin" thing and am not planning on going to see anymore. Regardless, they were totally amazing. Although I´m feeling exhausted and like this week has totally disappeared. Tomorrow I (and Elena) are taking a 7ish hour busride to Coban. Should be an adventure.

Honestly, I spend half my money on beverages. At every meal, the beverage part of the meal costs more than the food part. Everything is so cheap. For example today for breakfast I had fruit with granola, yogurt and honey (20Q), coffee (5Q) and water (12Q) (My hostel is 25Q). And I drink a lot of water. In Mexico in hostels you could fill up your water bottle with the big office coolers, but here it seems that it´s normal to buy it in plastic, which is more expensive and bad for the environment.

I have a ticket at 2 for a bus to Tikal (v. big/important/special Mayan ruin). I´ll spend the night somewhere nearby and then get up for the 6am opening. I just bought a flashlight that cost like $4 and they had to write out this invoice with stamps and signatures. Hopefully I´ll see the monkeys. On the boat tour I saw a huge crocodile!!

I think in July I want to go to Honduras. Everyone I´ve talked to loves it (people also seem to love love love Argentina). It´s a cheap place to learn scuba-diving. Those with the tiempo and dinero should start thinking about that... cough-Maeve-cough.

I´m at the first virus-free public computer. And it´s fast. Bueno.

Last night I got pretty drunk. Had a really good time. The beer here is called Gallo. It´s much like Mexican beers (DosEquis, Corona).

First, the electricity goes out here all the time for like 1/2 hour. It went out twice at the restaurant last night and once at the bar. All the tables have candles at them, so everything goes on as normal and then everyone cheers when the lights turn on. So I have been warned to save long emails to disk.

I forgot to write that when I stayed at the campsite it was in the Lacandon jungle with real Lacandones!!! (sarcasm). The Lacandones are an indigineous group. You can tell they´re Lacandones because they wear white robes. The robes look kind of like choir robes but shorter with short sleeves. So all the children and adults wear these robes and they all have longish hair. Recognizing that I am culturally insensitive, it was like INCREDIBLY cult like. (I´m posting now incase the electricity goes).

I am now in Flores, Guatemala. It's a very small, touristic {word used by every non English as a first language speaker I've spoken to} island very close to Tikal. I am freshly showered, staying in a great hostel, have dropped off my laundry and have dinner plans.

The van tour sucked. You may all judge me for taking the van tour. Because I judge everyone else for taking it. First, we went to Bonampak {Mayan ruins that have paintings} then we took a boat to Yaxchilan {Mayan ruins that are on the water - actually were in the jungle and was very empty and very cool}. The people were totally random. I ended up hanging out with this British guy {it was just him and me at this camp site} who I actively hated until I found out he was only 18, then I really enjoyed him.

The drive there I sat up front. All of these dogs {like 100) were all sleeping on the highway. At some parts we were weaving through the dogs.

Then today I was with completely different people. There was a British couple, 3 Australians {all 5 work in Whistler}, and 3 Dutch people. We took a boat and then got in this bus. Then the hard sell started. There was a guy from the bus company on the bus and all he did for the entire drive was tell everyone how they needed the tour company to get to their next destination. And everyone bought it!! We stopped at the office so everyone could by tickets {because you had to buy them days in advance}. It was ridiculous. I finally just grabbed my bag and got out of the bus instead of being dropped off at some good hotel he knew. Then I found the hostel, which isn't in the book, and is great.

So I'm judging everyone based on the randomness of their trips. I just met a girl who has travelled from Mexico City to Costa Rica and then took a bus back to Guatemala IN THREE WEEKS!! I'm not even going to make it to Oaxaca in Mexico because my planned time is so jampacked. And all of these people on the van tour were planning on seeing Mexico and all of Central America in the same time that I'm here. I judge.

Tomorrow I'm probably going to be sleeping in the jungle. I've been hearing howler monkey's but I haven't seen any. They sound like dinosaurs or lions. V. scary sounding. Also, I've met 2 people who got malaria here {that's what the guy from the last post was tentatively diagnosed with}. So I have a few mosquito bites and whenever I scratch them, I get worried.

Tody, Karen and I spent the day at Agua Azul, a big set of (blue) waterfalls. There was a lot of swimming against the current and sun-tanning. We hung out with a cool Brit. It was a good day.

Tomorrow at 6am I leave for Bonampak and Yaxchilan, 2 sets of ruins on the way to Flores, Guatemala. Then, on Wednesday I arrive in Flores. This is a probably sucky tour I{m going on, but oh well. There are like 10 companies here that all sell the exact same tours. I think that these companies are literally selling the same tours. Anyway, I asked one guy the price and then was like, Is it possible for a cheaper price? And he immediately said "Si" and crossed out the numbers he{d written and wrote down cheaper ones. (Right now there{s a ghekko crawling on the window, so I can see it{s belly. It{s eating bugs).

At dinner tonight this girl came to the table to ask if anyone at the table knew english and spanish, because her boyfriend was really sick and they needed an interpretor for the doctor. Way scary. Karen went with them.

This morning I was getting all of my stuff packed up and this girl Karen (from Switzerland) came into the hostel and was like, "Is this hostel any good?" And I said, "No, I{m going to this way better place right now". So we went to El Panchan together and have been hanging out all day and it{s been great.

First, El Panchen is a group of restaurants and Cabanas in the jungle, close to the Palenque ruins. Even this Internet place is there. It is like summer camp in the jungle with wine and coffee. Karen and I are in a cabana, in beds, that has a screen and fan.

I spent all morning at the Palenque ruins which really were phenomenol. Really amazing. And even cooler than the really big ruins were the partially excavated ruins that had huge trees growing out of them in the middle of the jungle.

Then all afternoon I lay in a hammock from the second floor of a restaurant, and read and watched gekkos and weird bugs. At one point it started to pour and it was so peaceful and really a great moment. I{m reading "The Republic of Love" by Carol Shields and it is the most romantic, beautiful love story I{ve ever heard of.

Brad got a job in Thailand teaching english, math and physics??!! He{s there right now and I guess he{s not coming home anytime soon!

Here´s the plotline since yesterday.

First, yesterday San Cristobal had the worst weather ever. I think it´s because of hurricanes in Mexico. It started raining at 1pm and didn´t ever stop. It usually rains every afternoon in San Cristobal but then it stops and is generally pleasant. Also, when it rains in SC the streets all flood. The sidewalks are generally a lot higher. So your feet as a rule get completely soaked if you ever have to cross a street, making the day more miserable.

So I decided to go to Palenque where at least it will be hot. (Which was choice 1 in the choices discussed yesterday.)

Last night Tia (from Denmark, who I think is the coolest person ever) and I went to a bar, Revolucion. There was a Jazz/Reggae band that was pretty good. There was this Australian guy who came to the table to chat us up (his opening line was in very self-concious Spanish). This guy was traveling alone and had an air of desperation and loneliness about him. I am very concerned that that will be me, very very soon. (Also, he was pretty old. I guess I´m at the age where men with bald spots are dateable??!!)

So I arrived in Palenque today (I took Immodium before the bus, preventitively and Gravol on the bus because of the windy, bumpy roads). I was recommended one place by two different people, Mayabell. It is a campground, you sleep in a hammock and hear the howler monkeys in the trees. So I went and rented a hammock and it WAS SO AWFUL. Everything about it. The hammock. The bugs. The people. And everyone else there had bug nets or tents. Like the people there were actually camping and had camping gear. I just lay there in the hammock, bracing myself for the most lonely, worst sleep of my life. It was so awful!!! So I said to myself "What would J.C. do". No not Jesus Christ. John Cormie. I cut my losses (in total $5.50 plus about $2 in van rides), took down the hammock and walked to the main road and caught a van back into town. I´m now staying in a hostel in Palenque town, where I´m currently in an Internet cafe.

It seems that there is this way cooler "travelor´s haven" type place that I´m going to go to tomorrow. And I still have to return the hammock. And it is nice and hot here.

I feel very friendless (I guess because I am.) Whenever I felt this way before, some conversation would happen with someone or invitation, that would be made even better, because I kind of needed it. I guess there is still time for that.

Regardless, tomorrow I´ll go to that good place, and see the Palenque ruins. Monday I´m going to go to Agua Azul for the whole day and swim and read and relax. Then I´m going to make my way to Flores, Guatemala. The only, best way to do this is through a van-trip out of Palenque. I know that this would rate as highly-lame on the Matt way of travelling (since the bitchiness of logistics is half the fun), but it´s the only way if I don´t want to go to Cancun again.

I would post everyday, but blogger is v. sketch. Although, when it is working I like the new interface.

The past two nights I have had an "intercambio" with a Mexican girl from San Cristobal, Roxanne. An intercambio (meaning "exchange") is this official thing through the Spanish school. They also have a lot of students who are learning English. So they set up a time when you meet another student and both help each other with their respective language.

Roxanne is my age and goes to University here (I didn{t actually know there was a University here, but oh well). Her english is about as bad as my spanish. She never conjugates verbs properly in the past tense, but I think her vocabulary is bigger than mine. Half the time we spoke in english and then the other half in spanish. It was really fun. She gave me a big list of Spanish movies that are good. I asked her what American tv shows were on tv here and she said The Beachcombers and Sabrina.

There{s a really great English bookstore here in town (since there are so many gringos). I bought the Lonely Planet Guatemala book (from 2004) and two novels and I sold my Footprint Mexico and Central America book. Footprint was a big disappointment, and even though it was way newer than LP Mexico, I never used it at all.

Anyway, have you guys seen any of the newer LP books? The Guatemala book has a totally updated style. It also seems way less reactionary and pleasant. I don{t know if that is because of the author or the "updatedness". For example, my Mexico book keeps on telling me that I{m going to die or be robbed. I{m not allowed to eat melons or take night buses. The Guatemala book actually had the line, "Just use the common sense that you would use in Rome or Manhattan." And really, the food here is fine. Everyone I{ve talked to travelling in Central America has been entirely or for-the-most-part healthy.

Oh, so all I think about is where to go next. I{m planning on going on a big week long trek (see last post) but it doesn{t leave for 2 weeks (from Xela, Guatemala). I have two possible, completely different plans. The first is to head kind of north in Chiapas to Palenque. Then there is this round-about way on a boat to get into Guatemala to Flores, visiting all of these Mayan ruins on the way (of which I{ve seen zero). Then I would travel to the south of Guatemala. The second is to just head into Guatemala from here, go to Antigua and party and meet people, go to the beach, maybe go for a week of language school in Xela and then after my trek, do that other stuff plus Tulum and Chichen Itza in my last week and a half.

I think I{m leaning towards going to the beach and making friends. Supposedly Guatemala is significantly cheaper than here (which is pretty cheap), but I think there are less hostels, so if I{m on my own, I{ll be paying for a whole room...

I also have a very anal daily routine here. I am already a regular here at this Internet coffee shop. I arrive everyday at 9 (after breakfast at 8). I always get a Cafe con leche. I always stay for about an hour. I then go to school, arriving 1/2 early. After school I always go home for lunch. I{m a creature of habit and routine!!!

There´s this van that drives around at all hours that is piled with those really big water jugs (like office water coolers). It also has this big loud speaker and it´s on this constant loop of, "Agua blah blah Agua blah blah Agua blah blah", then there is a chime of bells kind of like in my old books-on-record that meant turn the page and then it starts all over again. I guess you hear him driving down the street and wave him down.

I´ve been pretty busy. School is exhausting. For verb conjugating we talk about my friends Juan, Matteo, Lorraine and Juanita and the people in the flashcards. What they know, who they know, what they do, what they did, why they do it, how they are feeling on and on and on. And then I get homework. Yesterday me and a friend went on a trek to the highest point around (training for Guatemala - check out Trekking). We were above clouds, and there were no good pics because of it, but it was still pretty spectacular. There was all of this agriculture growing on these really vertical planes, but still in perfect rows.


I think I ate a dove for lunch yesterday. It was definitely a smaller-than-a-hen bird that was bbq´d. I was told that it was a dove but then the Mexican guy said something that sounded distinctly like "pigeon" to the other Mexican guy. We each got our own, and it was pretty good.

I´ve met 3 girls here who have all been in San Christobal for the same reason. There are 2 non-profits here that place foreigners in a Zapatista community for a week or two, simply to observe. I thought that the observations were to learn about their way of life etc. But it´s really to act as a "guard". The idea is that if the government comes into the community and does anything, then there is an outside witness from the international community. Kind of powerful stuff.

I moved into my "Spanish household" and I started Spanish lessons yesterday.

Spanish lessons were 1 1/2 hours of verb conjugation with one teacher and then 1 1/2 hours of "conversation" with another. We went through all of my vowel sounds on end. They both gave me homework.

For the week I´m living with an older lady, Isabel. She has 2 students; me and a 50 year old Texan, Steve. It is the height of randomness. Her cooking is TO DIE FOR. I´m so glad that I´m staying with her, mostly for that reason. Our main meal of the day is at 2pm. We had fresh cantalope juice, ham, homemade papas fritas (french fries), pasta starter and the usual tortilla/guacamole/salsa. Dinner is a lot smaller and at 8pm. I think every night we have tomales. This is a miracle food. You need a tomale-maker to do them and I´m totally buying one when I go home. It´s just a lot of goodness wrapped in corn husks. Families make like 200 of them on Saturdays. You put them in the freezer. Then you just pop them in the microwave. SO GOOD.

I also really like it that I have a bedroom with drawers for all my stuff. I´ve unpacked. And I have like 10 blankets on my bed, and I was able to sleep v. warmly last night.

I am the Sumpter of travelling and have been wearing my only pair of pants everyday. (Come on, I was going to Mexico. Who would bring more than one pair of pants!). And at the hostel I was also wearing them to bed because it was so cold.

I´m getting really excited about trekking in Guatemala. Right now I´m at 2100m altitude and I think I have a constant (v. mild) case of altitude sickness. Mostly I have headaches and my vision is kind of cloudier. Nothing terrible, I just feel kind of different than normal. And I think that the change in altitude is what brought on my migraine on Thursday. Is there anything I can do about this?

Also, I finished Kavalier and Clay (v. OC). It was really good, although the very ending was kind of random. I´m reading The Last Crossing right now and I can´t put it down. It is sooooo good.

On Friday night we went back to Madre Tierre to see the same band play. They´re called Soyotrotu. The guy in my band who is my dormmate (now his girlfriend is also sleeping in our room, and I think that I *won´t* be tonight) and I had a convo in Spanish. I´m pretty sure that he said that he went to BC last summer to grow weed. Then his friend made a pipe *out of a carrot*. Like a fresh carrot.

I was walking around and came to this church on a hill. There were like 40 thirteen year olds all in a sitting circle with bongos, breakdancing. It was wickid.

This is the land of roosters. They cock-a-doodle-doo all of the time.

Today I´m going to a church outside of the city that is a mix of Catholicism and Mayan paganism. Is supposed to be interesting.

I´m trying to be really open minded with the people I live with. I think the hostel I´m at now might attract a certain (cheaper, more hippy) type of travelor since it´s so cheap ($4 a night. In comparison, buying a bottle of beer from a bar on a Friday night is $2. 1 hour of Internet is $1). And I´m trying not to make broad, geographical stereotypes for people (for example, people from Berlin are so fucking cool they can´t be talked to. And Quebecois are loony bins *insane*. And English guys suck.)

This morning I signed up for Spanish lessons at Instituto Jovel. It is 3 hours of
individual lessons Mon-Fri as well as a stay with a family. The family part should be (hopefully) some intense Spanish learning. I think I should buy another pair of pants. It being *Mexico*, I thought that I would only need one pair but it?s too freaking cold here for anything but. And the family I live with is going to think I?m gross because I wear the exact same clothes everyday.

All day yesterday I slept on and off. Around 9 I was up and about. This guy Caeser (Mexican/American, worked in Silicon valley for 9 years) and this girl Maria (Argentinian) and I went out for tacos, drinks and music. We went to hear this band play who were awesome awesome awesome. It was kind of Reggae with beats. V. cool. Also this bar (Madre Tierra) and the whole town is the hippy central of the world.

So Caeser spoke perfect Spanish and English. Maria spoke no English. I spoke very little Spanish. So Caeser and Maria would have these very long conversations and then Caeser would be like, "Maria says her brother is a chef"... another very long conversation, then "Maria is funny". Actually I?m really glad they invited me out and had a really good time. One of the guys in the band is actually my only other dormmate.

The hostel is very cool. All of the hostels have been really cool and none of them have been in the Lonely Planet (it?s from 2002). I?ve found all of these hostels because I stumbled onto the first one (in the rain) and then heard about the others from hostelers.

Congratulations to my sister Danielle. She?s going to Marshall University in W. Virginia in the fall.

I´m in San Cristobel. As I was arriving into the city I woke up to a severe migraine. I was mostly worried that I´d forget my luggage or money or something (I have done that before in a migraine). I grabbed a cab and arrived at the hostel and slept on and off until 3. I now feel quite crap but better.

I´ll write more tomorrow. It´s pretty cold here.

Today around lunch I went to a market to check things out. There was a food area and a girl asked if I wanted pescado (fish). That sounded pretty good so I sat down. I expected some sort of fish filet that I could put into a tortilla but I got a whole fish that was fried. The fish had it?s eyeballs, it?s many many teeth, it?s tail. And it was huge.

Other thoughts on Mexico: People make out *a lot* here. It?s hard to walk down the street and not see a couple making out.

Also, some of the sidewalks here are 3 feet off the ground. There are stairs. V. easy to fall off of.

My sleep last night was not great. My room had a window with no screen. I woke up in the middle of the night to these awful awful mosquitos that kept buzzing in my ear. Finally I shut the window, making the room an oven. The mosquitos took me back to my CQE days. I should probably get some ear plugs.

Tonight I?m taking an overnight bus to San Christobel de las Casas in Chiapas (v. close to Guatemala). If all goes as planned I?ll be staying there for a week.

Congratulations to Jennie Schachter. Can?t wait to "C" you.

I am now in Campeche. This city used to have pirates. Like *actual* pirates of the caribbean. It´s pretty nice but I have no one to talk to. This hostel and the last (I liked the people in the last hostel) are near empty. Tonight I´m sleeping in the girls dorm which has 8 beds, alone.

I desperately need some kind of structured Spanish lesson. My Spanish is not progressing and I cannot understand anything anyone says (in Spanish). I bought a Spanish Marie Claire today for the bus. I think they just translated the American version, because all of the articles and ads showed/ were about non-hispanic people. I´ll get something more cultural next time. Tomorrow there´s a Spanish teacher coming to the hostel at 9 am. I´m not sure if I´m going to talk to them or head on to Palenque. Per the book, you should be on malaria meds for Palenque. I just started them on Sunday (so I´m worried they haven´t kicked in yet). But no one else I´ve talked to who is going to Palenque is worried at all about malaria (and is not on meds).

I´m feeling very healthy, although far from solid.

My comments are being sketchy. Should I remove them? Maybe it´s just the computers here at the hostel. They have severe virus/spy ware problems and I told them that and said I´d try to fix it but didn´t really get a response.

Also, for the first time in many, many months a book I´m selling on Amazon sold. (Yes, I know that I could have put my selling account on hold.) I need Jon Orr to mail the book for me. So if you see him tell him to check his email :)

Today I went on a day trip to see three Cenotes. The whole trip was really amazing and fun and random. Me and She-ra and 2 guys from England went on an adventure. First we found a collectivo that was going to the town (I´ll find out the name of the town later). Then we had to wait for the van to completely fill up before we left. It was about 1 1/2 ride with stops whenever someone wanted off or was waiting at the side of the road.

To get to the Cenotes we had to hire a man and horse to drive us. The 5 of us all sat on this wooden flat that was on rails and the horse pulled us. To get into the Cenote we went descended into a hole in the ground on an iron ladder. With my backpack on, I was kind of scraping the sides of the hole at one point. The descent was 35 metres. It was really freaky. But the Cenote was one of the most beautiful things I´ve seen. There were beams of light coming in and the water was clear and there were stalactites and roots coming down into the water through the roof. And there were bats. But they were really high up. It was amazing. We all swam for a long time and it was heaven.

The next two weren´t as amazing as the first. From the second you could see an entire tree up above and all of its roots below the surface of the ground. And there was a hole in the ground up above which let in this perfect halo-like beam of light. We swam there too. The third one had all of these birds playing and chasing each other. Hopefully I´ll have some good pictures.

After we were back, me and the Brits went for some Mex food and Sols. There was some festival that I didn´t understand that we went and watched. And now I´m back. The Brits are heading to Tulum which is south of Cancun and supposed to have the same quality beaches but be more laid back and hippy-ish, but I think I´m not ready to relax again. Cancun relaxed me out!

I really don´t know where I´m going next. I am liking traveling alone because that total uncertainty is alright :)

?Hola Amigos!

I?m in Merida, safe and sound. I hopped on the bus this morning and 4 hours later arrived here in monsoon rains. The bus ride was swank. There were movies playing the whole time. First Pollock and then How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Movies play in English with Spanish subtitles. I thought that it was funny that the swearing was most of the time translated into not swear words. And there was a computer animated movie about putting on your seatbelt in the bus, that showed computer animated bus accidents and all of the ways you could die in them. Disconcerting.

Arrived in the city, in a torrential downpoar. All of the streets had 6 inches of water, and it was inching over the curbs. All of the people we passed were stooped in doorways. It was drizzling when I left the bus station, although I was walking in water above my ankles whenever I crossed the street. I was heading to a hostel per Footprint, but passed a really good looking hostel on the way and walked in. It?s great. $9 for air conditioning, $7 without. (I?m with).

Right away this girl She-ra from Israel started talking to me which made me happy. Then I walked to the city center which was way beyond my expectations. Since it?s Sunday all the streets were closed and there was this huge cathedral (from the 1500s, oldest in the Americas per the guide book). I sat down and this young guy started talking to me in Spanish and then we went and ate chicken and had a long (very shallow) conversation all in Spanish. I think he asked me out to go salsa dancing tonight, and I said "Tal vez" ("Maybe", I was going to go if others in the hostel wanted to come too) and in the end stood him up because of the sketchiness of the situation.

Then I was walking around and I was trying to read this billboard about a modern art museum. And this guy came up to me and told me that it was a block away. So I went and it was free and a really cool art gallery with paintings and murals. There were these huge organic installations that were sheltered, but still outside. So far people have been really helpful. Before I left Waterloo, this guy Nick was like, "I want to give you advice, take it or don?t since I?m male and speak Spanish fluently, but trust the people". Yes, the sentiment was cheesy (and I am being safe), but it seems that people are really respectful and not trying to necessarily sell you something when they approach you (which is really different than some other places, like Morocco).

So I was really happy because I had a Spanish convo and went to the art museum. Then I got back to the hostel am being antisocial and Internetting.

Testing uno dos tres...